Monster Dash 2011

It's that time of year again...  The Monster Dash has become the race that I look forward to all year long for many reasons.  Not only does it conclude an extensive training regimen for Andrew but also is a great race to people watch.  Last year my friend Katie joined me and Lucy in our excursion out to watch Andrew run his first half marathon.  Unfortunately for us people watching was too much fun and we missed Andrew cross the finish line (maybe I should fess up that it wasn't the people as much as it was not being able to find the finish line; don't trust navigation systems, they can and will fail you!!).  This year the race was moved from Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul.  There went my confidence that we would know our way and be able to confidently find the finish line.  Fortunately though I didn't have to go through it alone.  Katie once again joined me and Grayson and we thoroughly enjoyed getting to see all of the fantastic costumes of 2011.

At 8:00 the runners were off and our trio headed out to find some coffee and warmth.  Once again the navigation system failed us.  We were on route to Caribou or so we thought and ended up at Burger King.  Wanting to warm up and drink something (anything) we decided Burger King would have to do.  The upside was supposed to be the food.  Not so much, the food tasted like it had been sitting out for 20 minutes and dropped back in vat of grease to heat it up.  Yuck!!  So we were off again to find the finish line.  We were not going to miss it this time.

SUCCESS, we found the finish line and we were even 20 minutes early.  And to our surprise right in front of our noses at the finish line... CARIBOU!  Fantastic right?  Nope, the line was soooooooooo long Andrew would have needed to run a full marathon before we got our drinks.  Bummer!

All of our disappoints were quickly erased when we saw Andrew cross the finish line at 1:45:10.  He finished in record time.  What a great way to end the year, with a personal best!!!

Great job honey!  As Tony the Tiger would say, You're GRRRRRRRRREAT!

For all the kiddos... Running with Scissors

Sweating to the oldies

3 lifesize Q-tips

Strong finish... WAY TO GO HONEY!